How was Nero's anger going to save Romulus?

[Xerxes1979]

If the Romulan supernova was a natural event how was destroying Vulcan(the creators of red matter) going to prevent the same disaster many decades later?

From a very large blob of red matter a small amount is needed to destroy a planet. The amount is finite however and would be greatly depleted wiping out the various hundreds of planets in the U.F.P. The full glob may have been needed to save Romulus in any case so even if Nero survived all those decades he may have still failed.

Would destroying the Federation have stopped the supernova? What would be a non-natualistic cause for the explosion? Q civil war, Soran Nexus path alteration, Omega particle research, genesis wave, etc?

Was Nero really that stupid? Was his whole crew that stupid?

 

[DonIago]

Nero had over a century to worry about the supernova. In the meantime he just wanted to get revenge on the powers that he felt had allowed Romulus to be destroyed.

In short, destroying Vulcan had nothing to do with saving Romulus from the supernova, though it may have had something to do with enabling the Romulans to become a stronger, or perhaps the dominant force in the alpha quadrant.

 

[Merky]

Nero said it himself, he wanted Spock to feel the pain he felt when he lost his home world. He wasn't trying to stop a Supernova, he was like

" Fuck it, if I'm gonna lose my world and my family Imma make sure that all you fuckers out there experience the same pain I felt because y'all promised to save my planet. "

Nero went insane. Logic does not apply to the mentally insane.

 

[BlobVanDam]

Was Nero really that stupid? Was his whole crew that stupid?

Nero was that stupid. Clearly his crew were just as stupid. The whole motivation and goal of Nero was stupid.
The "Nero was insane" argument makes no sense. He sat around forever on a ship with a bunch of other people willing to do what he tells them, and not one of them bothered to think the situation through in all of this time. His goal was to destroy the planet with the technology to save Romulus, and to take revenge on the one person who tried to save his planet in the face of a natural disaster, of which he had no part in. Not to mention he had gone back in time to a point where Romulus still existed, so he had all the opportunity to stop it from ever happening.

 

[Deckerd]

How do you stop a supernova from happening?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Nero should have destroyed the Hobus star, and saved his wife, first thing. I can see why he went after Vulcan first, for revenge on two Spocks at once, but after that... yeah. Rather stupid.

But the reason Nero wanted the Federation gone was so the Romulan Empire would have expanded unencumbered for those 129 years. He had a supply of Red Matter, more than enough to stop the nova (it took one droplet for Spock to absorb the whole exploded thing) so he didn't need to keep the Vulcans around for that.

The cause of the supernova? They didn't know in either Countdown or The Needs of the Many. I think Star Trek Online says the "we faked our own extinction" Iconians did it.

 

[Timo]

How do you stop a supernova from happening?

According to our best knowledge of the Star Trek universe so far, you turn it into a black hole with red matter.

Which is a really bad idea if the supernova-prone star happens to be the homestar of your civilization!

OTOH, if the supernova were some other star in some other star system, then preventing it should have been a breeze. Just drop a tiny dose of red matter into it on your way from the Romulan Neutral Zone (where Spock apparently emerged and delivered the substance to Nero's waiting hands) to Vulcan.

Perhaps that's what the battle with the Klingons was all about: the time travel did not involve spatial travel, both Nero and Spock time-emerged at basically the same spatial coordinates they time-departed from, and thus the star we see in the background when the Kelvin dies is the very same star that would go supernova a bit over a century later. Since that star was close to some Klingon assets, as per movie dialogue, it's quite possible Nero had to fight Klingons in order to turn that star into a black hole in 2258. From dialogue, we do know this fighting took place between Spock's emergence and the attack on Vulcan.

Of course, plotwise it makes more sense for the supernova to be the Romulan homestar rather than some other star; any explosion outside the home system would give far too much advance warning for the plot to make sense. But if we say this non-homestar (let it be Hobus like in the comic, even though the comic is otherwise incompatible with the movie) was fairly close to the homestar, just a few lightweeks away or something, we could fudge the timeline so that it still makes sense. Say, Hobus could sit right outside the RNZ while the homestar could sit right inside it. Or then Robau might have been badass and sailed into the RNZ or Romulan space, and then met his demise at Hobus.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deckerd]

So I take it Romulus's solar system was not binary? That's what I assumed from the storyline. Otherwise a 'nearby' star would have been too far away.

 

[Timo]

We still have incomplete knowledge, but at least ST:Nemesis cleared up some things...

We didn't see a close-paired binary in that movie, nor did two stars appear together on the Romulan sky in any of those TNG episodes where we visited Romulus. A wide binary is still a possibility, though. And perhaps Romulans deliberately chose a wide binary for their home system after leaving Vulcan, remembering how the Vulcan system also is supposed to be a wide ternary, with 40 Eridani A and the B/C pair separated from each other by 400 AU. A wide binary would be consistent with what we see in ST:NEM and the episodes.

Similarly, Romulans may have chosen a system with a double planet setup similar to the one they departed from. Vulcan is stated to have no moon, yet is shown with a major companion body in ST:TMP but without one in several TOS, TNG and ENT episodes. ST:NEM in turn shows that Romulus and Remus are on nearly identical orbits around the local star, with Remus a bit farther out and thus trailing; the two would only come near each other every few years, much like Vulcan and her consort would only meet occasionally if they had the same setup.

And it could well be that great things would happen when the twin planets came close to each other. Kolinahr diplomas might only be given out on Vulcan during such encounters, and slave rebellions on Remus would more or less regularly take place when the planet brushed on Romulus.

If the Romulan homestar (Eisn in novels) were the one we see in all the episodes and ST:NEM, while Hobus or Romii or whatever was a wide component some hundreds of AU away (and never seen until STXI), an explosion at an unpredictable moment could catch Spock by surprise while he was underway on a very fast starship. If the supernova were more distant, such a surprise would not be possible unless the explosion proceeded at high FTL speed. And we see what happens when the explosion slams onto Romulus: that's not a FTL impact...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

According to The Needs of the Many, the star that went supernova was 500 light-years away from Romulus, and exploded in a Praxis-style magical multiwarp FTL fashion.

Welcome to the fantasy world of Star Trek, Est. 1964.

 

[Timo]

Isn't it fortunate that the movie itself requires us to believe in no such things?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ShatnersToupee]

Nero was that stupid. Clearly his crew were just as stupid. The whole motivation and goal of Nero was stupid.
The "Nero was insane" argument makes no sense. He sat around forever on a ship with a bunch of other people willing to do what he tells them, and not one of them bothered to think the situation through in all of this time. His goal was to destroy the planet with the technology to save Romulus, and to take revenge on the one person who tried to save his planet in the face of a natural disaster, of which he had no part in. Not to mention he had gone back in time to a point where Romulus still existed, so he had all the opportunity to stop it from ever happening.

I agree. You'll often hear people defend this movie by saying Nero was insane and therefore his motives shouldn't have to make sense. But what about his crew? Don't you think that after 25 years, some of them might question to mental health of their captain? And what about Nero himself? Is it plausible that his anger would last that long? Also, did the movie establish how Nero knew when and where Spock would appear? I don't recall. But however you try to rationalize it, the motive for Nero is ridiculous. If my house catches on fire and my family dies cause the firefighters couldn't get their in time, is it plausible that I would go insane to the point where I would want to exact revenge on the firefighter's family? Of course not. It's bad writing. But there will always be fans who'll defend anything Trek. These are the people who defend Star Trek V, Voyager, and even Threshold.

 

[Timo]

Also, did the movie establish how Nero knew when and where Spock would appear? I don't recall.

All we learned was that Nero had "calculated" the "coordinates". With 25 years to spend calculating, and with sensor readings on what had happened to Nero's own ship in the time jump, I guess this would be plausible.

We don't know if the coordinates were spatial, temporal or both. It's quite possible that the timewarp spits out its victims in the exact same spot (some minor stellar drift notwithstanding) even if at different times. And indeed there are Klingons nearby when Nero emerges, and again Klingons within an hour's range when Spock emerges (as evidenced by Starfleet dialogue in both cases), suggesting it might be the same location.

If my house catches on fire and my family dies cause the firefighters couldn't get their in time, is it plausible that I would go insane to the point where I would want to exact revenge on the firefighter's family?

Certainly. The remake of Cape Fear was based on the very premise, at least: the villain in the remake hunted down his defense attorney, not the prosecution. And it's frighteningly plausible there.

I'm pretty sure things like this happen all the time in the real world. Whether the insane hatred lasts for a quarter of a century is another matter, and whether it encompasses an entire "extended family" of coworkers is yet another. But the basic premise is certainly sound.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Merky]

People are forgetting that Nero and his crew weren't sitting on ship calculating this for 25 years. He spent 25 years in a prison doing hard labor on Rura Penthe. If he was floating in space for 25 years, maybe he'd have time to self reflect. But spending 25 years in the Alien's Graveyard?

Yeah, I doubt it.

 

[F. King Daniel]

People are forgetting that Nero and his crew weren't sitting on ship calculating this for 25 years. He spent 25 years in a prison doing hard labor on Rura Penthe. If he was floating in space for 25 years, maybe he'd have time to self reflect. But spending 25 years in the Alien's Graveyard?

Yeah, I doubt it.

You mean the deleted scenes where we see him being smuggled star charts from the outside, and we see (and hear about) his book of notes, equations and charts?

Those deleted scenes that substantiate what's said in the movie?

 

[Merky]

Word of God said so and with the deleted scenes would substantiate that Nero spent 25 years on Rura Penthe.

And if people want to throw it out of the picture and say it's not submittable for an argument, the bro went insane. There's no reasoning or explanation for insanity. Everyone on that ship lost someone dear to them, they had 25 years to sit on it and subsequently fell off into the deep end. If we look at every insanity fueled by revenge story out there, it's the same pattern: Person is betrayed/losses someone, person plans out revenge, person takes out revenge on target and all those related to them.

I wouldn't say that Nero was stupid. He was insane. If I lost my entire planet and family and I had some mofo and his organization promising me that he would save them from total destruction and failed to do it, I'd go crazy too.

 

[sonak]

Nero was a poorly written, one-dimensional character and his motivations make no sense. How much this affects one's enjoyment of the film is up to them.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Nero made perfect sense as a mad dog that had to be put down. In any other context, he's a total nut with a very powerful weapon at his disposal. In the 24th-Century, Nero probably wouldn't have got very far with the Narada, but he totally bitch-slapped ships in the 23rd-Century, both Federation and non-Federation.

Well, except for one...

 

[F. King Daniel]

In fairness, Enterprises are virtually invincible unless Troi's driving.

 

[ShatnersToupee]

If my house catches on fire and my family dies cause the firefighters couldn't get their in time, is it plausible that I would go insane to the point where I would want to exact revenge on the firefighter's family?

Certainly. The remake of Cape Fear was based on the very premise, at least: the villain in the remake hunted down his defense attorney, not the prosecution. And it's frighteningly plausible there.

I'm pretty sure things like this happen all the time in the real world. Whether the insane hatred lasts for a quarter of a century is another matter, and whether it encompasses an entire "extended family" of coworkers is yet another. But the basic premise is certainly sound.

LOL. The fact that you couldn't come up with a better example than Cape Fear proves my point. I have yet to hear a story where something like this happened in the real world. In the real world, the person who lost their family would simply say "thanks for trying. I know you did everything you could." It continually amazes me the lengths people will go to to defend a movie they like.

And if people want to throw it out of the picture and say it's not submittable for an argument, the bro went insane. There's no reasoning or explanation for insanity. Everyone on that ship lost someone dear to them, they had 25 years to sit on it and subsequently fell off into the deep end. If we look at every insanity fueled by revenge story out there, it's the same pattern: Person is betrayed/losses someone, person plans out revenge, person takes out revenge on target and all those related to them.

I wouldn't say that Nero was stupid. He was insane. If I lost my entire planet and family and I had some mofo and his organization promising me that he would save them from total destruction and failed to do it, I'd go crazy too.

The insanity excuse is a total cop-out. You're a writer who has to come up with a villain. Why does he do the things that he does? Oh he's insane. OK, that saves me from having to come up with anything plausible. I can simply hide behind the "he's insane" BS. It shows just how incompetent the writers. The fact that so many fans bought into it shows them to be nothing more than apologists for bad writing. If someone told me that they would potentially go insane if someone failed to save their family's lives, I would call the police and have that person committed. You're a danger to us all. I guess if you have a relative that ever undergoes emergency surgery, I'd better warn the surgeon. Hey doctor. If you don't save your patient's life, his relative's going to exact revenge on you cause that's how close he is to losing his sanity.